


at dawn we see the night

by orphan_account



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Canon Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-05 17:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18370304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: And he might talk a lot about the future for someone paid to live in the present, but it’s all just talk. Ten out of ten times, Baekhyun would have chosen the stage too. Jongdae hopes so, at least.





	at dawn we see the night

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [kpopolymfics2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/kpopolymfics2019) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
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>  **Kevin Oh – "Lover"**  
> [lyrics](https://popgasa.com/2018/07/25/kevin-oh-lover-%EC%97%B0%EC%9D%B8/) **|** [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL_vmjEAhA0) **|** [supplementary](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/fd/78/33/fd78331e11b1dfd48545a89ad1a8fb5e.jpg) \- [prompts](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/56/21/d7/5621d70410dc72d3f9f7af0c8290bffd.jpg)

The lights on the Immortal Song stage are brutal. Jongdae’s face is already covered in a thin layer of sweat when the background piano begins, and he swallows heavily as he hears Baekhyun start singing. Seven months of combined work has boiled down to these five minutes in front of the judges—neither of them can afford to mess up now.

Listen, their vocal coach had told them. Listen to each other if you want a chance of surviving. Listen in the studio, listen outside the studio—by the time you’re on stage, you should be feeling the other’s breaths like a second pulse.

And Jongdae does. The first transition between them goes effortlessly; he barely has to think when he picks up the melody from where Baekhyun left off. Part of it is practice, for sure. They’ve spent countless hours locked in together at the studio, killing themselves over and over to make it sound easy. 

The other part is something different. Jongdae doesn’t dwell on it as they sing through the opening lines, nor does he think about it when they breeze through their first harmony together. It isn’t until when they’re on the cusp on the first chorus—really, I didn’t know—that Jongdae looks over two feet and _sees_ Baekhyun for the first time since they started this duet. For one brief second, they make unashamed eye contact. Then two. Three.

In this moment, everything is so impossibly easy. Easy things fall apart fast, Jongdae thinks, but right now he can't remember to worry about it.

What he does remember, however, is that on stage, time will not stop for them. Audio backtrack doesn’t stop for anyone. If Jongdae takes his time to really think about what the glimmer in Baekhyun’s gaze means, he’s going to miss his entrance.

Jongdae turns back to the crowd, breaking the eye contact. They keep singing.

 

 

Jongdae sees the other boy for the first time in the waiting room, closing his eyes and muttering something under his breath in rapid-fire dialect. They’re auditioning against each other, sure, but Jongdae talks when he gets nervous, and he is nervous as hell right now.

“It’s too late to pray, you know,” Jongdae teases, when the boy finally opens his eyes. “You’re already at the gates of hell.”

The other boy startles, but then breaks out into an effortless laugh. “Nice to meet you too,” he says, sticking out his hand almost aggressively. “Byun Baekhyun. And for your information, my mother said that it was good luck to recite Confucian values before the audition, so.”

“Kim Jongdae. What a filial son. Can’t imagine how that’d help.” Jongdae can’t hold back a laugh at the dirty look that Baekhyun throws his way, and takes the offered hand. He’s glad to find that both of their hands are equally clammy. “I’m sorry, I’m just trying to support you!”

“At least you’re being supportive,” Baekhyun acquiesces, face relaxing. He jabs a thumb over his shoulder, pointing at exactly nothing. “A guy over there told me to go fuck myself when I asked for a pencil. Turns out we’re not all friendly here.” Dramatically, the boy places a hand over his heart. “I’m not here to win, I’m here to make friends! They also told me there were going to be snacks, but they lied.” He cracks another smile at Jongdae, but it’s a little wobbly. “I’m still extremely nervous though. Can’t stop shaking.”

That, Jongdae understands. His own palms are sweaty, and even though he’s laughing at Baekhyun’s stupid ramblings, his knees are a second away from collapsing. “Do you want to sing for each other, then?”

“I would say yes, but my mom says that’s bad luck.” 

Jongdae laughs lightly. “That’s fine, don’t worry about it. Are you feeling ready?”

The other boy shuffles, then lets out a sigh. “I would say yes, but being overconfident is also—”

“Bad luck, got it.”

“I do want to hear you sing, though,” Baekhyun admits, itching at the back of his neck. A small constellation of pimples is scattered across his left cheek. He’s not model-handsome, Jongdae notes, but there’s something about the way that Baekhyun turns to look him directly in the eyes; how pinned in place Jongdae feels from a gentle smile. 

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

“Can we not do the audition song? If I hear it one more time, I’m actually going to die. Pick whatever song you like.” 

Jongdae’s heart starts racing again as Baekhyun puts his phone down, tucking his hands under his thighs to give the other boy his undivided attention. It’s hard to start singing with someone else watching so intently, and he starts his first note half a step too sharp.

“Ah, sorry,” Jongdae mumbles, a little flustered, but Baekhyun doesn’t say anything. He starts again, and this time, his notes come out clean. There is little in the world more familiar to Jongdae than singing, and so he loses track of his surroundings a little bit as he goes through some Lee Juck ballad, closing his eyes during the high notes and letting his voice go all breathy at the saddest lines.

At the last verse, another voice joins him—it’s a little pitchy and the vocalization is weird, but somehow, it harmonizes so well that Jongdae, in shock, opens his eyes again. The way they float through the rest of the song is almost unsettling; the intonation is by no means perfect, but for two boys used to singing solo, it’s much better than expected. Baekhyun’s voice is dark the way that Jongdae’s voice is light, filling in the spaces in between his breaths. They finish on a gentle sustain, a third apart. 

Baekhyun is staring at him, mouth slightly agape with the corner pulled all the way down, as if disgusted. For the longest second, neither say anything. A few other trainees are also staring, many with similar expressions. The silence is heavy, but not uncomfortably so.

“Sorry,” Baekhyun finally says, switching back to his speaking voice. “I just really like that song.” His face is flushed with mild embarrassment and awe. “Jongdae… you have a fucking awesome voice.” 

Jongdae swallows, waving it off. “You have a really nice voice,” he says too, and even though it sounds weak, he means his words. “I kind of regret asking you to sing.” Again, Jongdae finds himself feeling oddly vulnerable, despite not having said anything that would warrant the discomfort, and the sensation only intensifies when Baekhyun gives him an impossibly relieved smile. 

“Nonsense, you’re going to make it for sure,” Baekhyun says offhandedly, as the other trainees murmur amongst themselves. “When your face is splashed all across the front pages of Pann, I’ll be sure to brag about meeting you at the auditions. Saying things out loud imbues them with truth, by the way, my mom said so.”

Jongdae snorts, relieved to be back in his comfort zone. “I sure hope so,” he replies, grimacing somewhat, “but I can’t dance to save my life.”

The laugh he gets in response settles around his shoulders, all warm and comfy. “Neither can I,” Baekhyun admits, itching again at the back of his neck, where the ends of his hair hang just long enough to touch the already reddening skin. “I can’t ever get my legs and arms to move the way I want them to.”

“Singing is so much easier,” Jongdae whines. “I came here to sing, not to hip-thrust.”

“You’re in the wrong place, then… I only came here for the hip-thrusting,” Baekhyun quips back, and Jongdae laughs incredulously. He’s laughed more in the past ten minutes of conversation than in the entire week building up to his audition.

For all of his whining, though, Jongdae wants this more than anything. He loves music, and he knows it’s not a competition—once you’ve gotten into a company, that is. Jongdae doesn’t know what he’d do if he doesn’t make it in, frankly. He’d die if he had to go back to college. His family and friends don’t get it.

But Baekhyun does, completely, because Baekhyun is in the exact same boat. It almost scares Jongdae how similar the boy’s story sounds to his own. 

Two hours after they first meet, Baekhyun’s name is finally called and for the first time, the smile drops from his face. He closes his eyes, and runs through a short section of Confucius’s thoughts on being faithful in death. They call his name again.

“Good luck,” Jongdae says, grabbing Baekhyun’s wrist right before he turns away. “I hope you do well.” The words come out so genuine that they even surprise Jongdae a little. He hadn’t meant to sound quite so earnest, but when Baekhyun grins back at him, he finds that he doesn’t mind so much.

“You too, Kim Jongdae.” And then the audition room is quiet again, save for those practicing the same song that Jongdae’s going to have to sing in roughly forty-five minutes.

Baekhyun disappears for the rest of the day, and Jongdae misses his company until he goes in for his own audition. Trying hard not to puke in front of the judges, he hits a stunning D-sharp in a flat-key song, fumbles through thirty seconds of horrifying free-style dancing, and then bows out the door. 

For two minutes after he gets back into the waiting room, he can’t hear anything except the blood roaring in his ears. Jongdae rests for a little while, curled up against a corner, trembling faintly. The aftershocks of the audition are still making their way through his system. 

There goes that, he thinks bitterly, when he’s finally calmed enough to form coherent thought. He wants to touch base with Baekhyun, hoping that at least one of their auditions went well, but what if—what if the other boy’s audition had gone well? Jongdae can’t tell if he fears Baekhyun’s failure or success more.

Two weeks later, when he gets an inexplicable message telling him that he’s made it to the final round of callbacks, Jongdae tells his parents, his closest friends, and then closes his phone. He hadn’t ever gotten Baekhyun’s number, but something in him itches to ask if Baekhyun had gotten the message too. 

Jongdae spends twenty seconds trying to figure out what he wants the answer to be, and he’s relieved when the answer is a resounding yes. 

 

 

Jongdae finds Baekhyun again fifteen minutes after one of the best auditions of his life. Despite singing his heart out, Jongdae shakes the entire back to the waiting room, unable able to pry the claws of self-doubt and fear out of his lungs long enough to breathe properly. He sinks down in the corner of the room, knees pressed up against his chest.

“Hey,” a newly-familiar voice says. Jongdae looks up, and tries to muster up a grin at Baekhyun.

“Hey. I’m just… I’m just resting my legs,” he jokes. There’s a rush of relief when Baekhyun shrugs and sits down next to him.

“Don’t worry, I just did the exact same thing in the men’s room. Post-audition jitters, I get it.” Baekhyun pauses, biting his lip. “Have you eaten yet?”

Jongdae shakes his head.“No, but I don’t think I can stomach anything right now.”

“Fair enough.” They sit together in comfortable silence, while Jongdae tries to get his breathing back under control. Out of the corner of his eye, Jongdae watches Baekhyun flip through his phone to open up a mobile game without turning the volume off. The little pew pew sound effects are kind of endearing, though.

“What game?” Jongdae asks, scooching over to look. It’s some cartoon shooter, with colorful bullets raining every which direction.

“Oh, I don’t even really know,” Baekhyun replies, barely even looking up. His fingers tap rapidly over the screen, shooting and dodging. “I think it’s—something about art battles, I can’t quite remember.”

When he clears the stage, a little three-note horn fanfare sounds for him, and Baekhyun drops his phone, crowing with achievement. Not at all embarrassed by the noise, he looks up and grins when he sees Jongdae’s amusement.

“It’s a good de-stressing mechanism, I promise,” he says, and pushes his phone towards Jongdae. “You try it.”

The game is deceptively hard—Jongdae dies on his first two tries of the stage, causing Baekhyun to laugh, but manages to get by with just one star out of three on his third try. 

“One more time,” he begs Baekhyun, who acquiesces and lets him keep the phone. 

“Don’t get hooked,” the other warns jokingly. “I’ve seen the withdrawal from these games, and it isn’t pretty.”

“Shut up, let me play in peace.” Jongdae’s fourth try goes much better. After three tries, he’d began to memorize the bullet patterns, and now, he taps more out of muscle memory than actual reaction. He ends with three stars, and triumphantly looks up. 

“I’m proud,” Baekhyun says, nonchalantly. Jongdae beams.

There’s a natural lull in the conversation, but it’s not uncomfortable. Feeling much less nauseous and much more hungry, Jongdae’s just about to ask if Baekhyun wanted to grab lunch together when the other glances at the clock on the wall and jumps up, letting out a short yell of surprise.

“Shit, I’ve got ten minutes until my shuttle leaves!” Baekhyun pats down his pockets, making sure everything he’d brought was with him, satisfied when nothing seems to be gone. Jongdae’s question dies in his throat, but Baekhyun manages to make up for it. 

“Add your number on there,” he says before Jongdae can even close his mouth, nodding his head towards his phone, which Jongdae realizes with a start that’s still in his hands. 

He’s never felt this nervous typing in a phone number before; there’s still no guarantee that they’ll ever meet again. If either of them make it in, they’ll definitely never speak again. Jongdae swipes back to the home screen. Baekhyun’s background is some puppy, of course, and it makes him smile. 

Still, he puts in his number and his name. After a second of hesitation, Jongdae saves a :3 after his name as well, for no good reason.

Baekhyun laughs at that, because Baekhyun seems to laugh at everything and Jongdae can’t help but laugh along.

“I’ll see you then?” Jongdae asks, handing the phone back to Baekhyun.

“I’ll see you,” Baekhyun says, and it feels like a promise.

 

 

In the eleven breathless months between the beginning of training and debut, Jongdae sees Baekhyun nearly every hour of his life. They dorm together, eat together, train together; Jongdae can’t avoid Baekhyun even if he tries.

He doesn’t try at all. Joining late in the process means that all of the other trainees have already gotten to know each other, so Jongdae had been beyond relieved to find at least one familiar face. Baekhyun had likewise felt the same—and thus, they walk in together.

Baekhyun, for what it’s worth, turns out to be batshit crazy, but in the best way possible. Up to this point in his life, Jongdae had always been convinced that he was the loudest person he’d ever known, but Baekhyun gave him a run for his money. When they talk, Jongdae laughs until his stomach hurts or his manager tells him to shut up.

Slowly, the other members warm up to them: some to Baekhyun first, and some to Jongdae first. But even as they make new friends, the relationship between them doesn’t change: Baekhyun and Jongdae are a package deal.

“Shove over,” Baekhyun says in the morning, toothbrush still stuck in his mouth. Rooming together had involved a strange learning curve—Jongdae had never heard anyone make noises the way Baekhyun did before sleep. At first, it was weird to live in such proximity with another person, but after the better part of a year, Jongdae has acclimatized to the lack of privacy. 

“You woke up later, so I get the sink first,” Jongdae replies snippily, but after he finishes brushing his teeth, he immediately moves out of the way to give Baekhyun some room. The other boy happily moves in, leaning over to spit out bubble gum foam and quickly scrub his face. When he pops back up, Jongdae laughs and brings his hands up to smooth out the wild, desert-scrub tufts of Baekhyun’s bedhead.

“Jesus,” he says, when Baekhyun yelps at a clump of hair being nearly tugged out of his scalp. “You need to wash your hair, Baekhyun.” In the mirror, he sees Baekhyun scowling. They’re standing incredibly close to both be seen in the tiny, rectangular mirror of the dorm bathroom, nearly touching chest-to-back. 

“You don’t exactly smell like roses, asshole.” Baekhyun makes another face in the mirror, and then brings his hands up to his hair. “Can I borrow your brush? Pretty sure I gave Chanyeol mine, and frankly, I don’t want it back.”

“No, gross,” Jongdae says, but he’s already rifling through the bathroom drawer to look for his 

Jongdae chalks their mutual comfortableness up to the fact that they’d been each other’s first friend at a terrifying company, surrounded by intimidatingly talented trainees. Part of their first few months of training had covered the idea of reinventing one’s self as an idol, of becoming much less Kim Jongdae and much more Chen.

Seeing Baekhyun is a reminder that Jongdae isn’t completely out of his element; that no matter how much he changes, there is a constant that’s been with him since day one.

 

After their first win with Growl, a few of their members cry on stage. Most notably, Jongin gets filmed by a still-laughing Taemin. Jongdae laughs, but honestly, he gets it. 

He’s never been a particularly weepy person, though, so he lets Junmyeon and Jongin have their moment. They’ve trained so many years to get to this point, to finally hear their own song playing in the background. They deserve to lose themselves in the thousands of fans voicing their support.

Baekhyun hangs around the back with Jongdae, similarly dry-eyed. They make momentary eye contact, but Jongdae can instantly see his own emotions reflected in the other boy’s slight smile. For them, eleven months of training had been grueling, but their first win isn’t the stage for them to cry on. Not here, not now. 

 

When EXO-K and EXO-M split for promotions, Jongdae talks with Baekhyun just enough to miss him in the moments in between. In the first few weeks back, he turns so many times to talk to Baekhyun out of habit, only to find nothing but thin air. Jongdae can’t help but feel isolated in China, where he can’t read the street signs or understand the jokes that the hosts tell. His only comforts are in Minseok, a fellow Korean adrift in a foreign world, and phone calls home.

By home, Jongdae means three people: his brother, his mother, and Baekhyun. If only SM hadn’t brought EXO-M back for a summer for Growl and Wolf, then maybe Jongdae wouldn’t miss him so bad. Spending half a year in Korea reminds him of what he loses when he’s not there.

It’s almost too easy to talk with Baekhyun—late at night, when both of them are exhausted after a day of non-stop promotion, Jongdae finds himself giving up precious sleep time to conversation with him. Despite his default setting at max energy, tired Baekhyun is surprisingly (or rather unsurprisingly, if Jongdae remembers Baekhyun from the auditions) mellow and thoughtful. 

The first and last time Jongdae almost confesses to Baekhyun, it’s a complete and utter accident. They’re on the phone—courtesy of the four-hour plane ride between Seoul and Beijing, where EXO-M had attended some interview or the other—and Jongdae is impossibly drowsy.

“Yeah,” he mutters in response to some wild story Baekhyun’s telling about Junmyeon and Sehun, half-listening and half-asleep. The only reason he hasn’t ended the call yet is because he doesn’t have the heart to shut Baekhyun down. 

There’s a momentary lapse in conversation. Jongdae has learned to measure his relationships by the color of the silences within them; with Baekhyun, they’re usually comfortable, almost cozy. However, the quiet breaths crackling through the receiver sound almost anxious.

“Jongdae?” Baekhyun finally asks. “Are you okay in China?”

The yes is on the tip of his tongue before he really thinks about it, because no, Jongdae doesn’t know if he is. He wants to be in Korea, promoting with EXO-K, singing in Korean because the vowels in Chinese are tricky and the audience laughs at him when he stumbles over them. He wants to be in Korea, because he trained to sing in Korean and not being able to sing the way he’s used to feels like re-learning how to walk. And on some extent, Jongdae wants to be in Korea because the people he loves are all in Korea.

“I don’t know,” he says after a few seconds. And then, inexplicably, “I miss you.” Jongdae feels a little silly after the words leave his lips.

But Baekhyun doesn’t hesitate to respond. “I miss you too,” he breathes into the receiver, melancholy and impossibly gentle. “Kim Jongdae, come home soon.”

Right then and there, unbidden, Jongdae opens his mouth to say _I love you_. “I—,” he begins, then promptly closes his mouth, because what the hell? All of sudden, he’s wide awake, sitting up in bed, holding the phone to his ear like a lifeline and wondering when he became so reliant on it.

“Jongdae?”

“Yeah, I-,” he stammers out quickly, when he realizes he’s left Baekhyun hanging on the other end. “I will. I’m just a little lost right now, but I’ll figure it out. By the time I go back to Korea and see your ugly face, I’ll figure it out.” Jongdae doesn’t really know what he’s promising, or who he’s even promising it to. 

He expects Baekhyun to laugh at him, or at least react to the insult, but the other boy does neither. “Figuring it out sounds good,” he agrees. “Promise me you’ll call even if you don’t, okay?”

“I will. For sure.” Something hesitant and lovely curls into the hollow of Jongdae’s chest, painfully honest again and again. He’s never been able to lie to Baekhyun, and frankly, Jongdae doesn’t ever think he wants to. The failed confession lingers on his lips. Jongdae vows that there won’t be a second failed attempt—he’ll either tell Baekhyun or forget about it entirely. “Goodnight, Baek—I gotta get up early tomorrow.”

“Mmhmm, me too. Goodnight, Jongdae.” Baekhyun courteously waits for Jongdae to say goodbye too before hanging up, leaving Jongdae alone in his hotel room again with his thoughts.

“I love you,” Jongdae tries out quietly into the dark. “I love you.” It rings a little hollow, so Jongdae says it a few more times before finally falling asleep.

In the morning, when he wakes up, his phone shows two new texts from Baekhyun, sent half an hour ago: _make sure to get some rest_ and _take care of yourself, jongdae…_ with two broken heart emojis.

Jongdae picks up the phone and stares at the messages. _No, Baekhyun,_ he thinks foolishly, suddenly unable to let go of the idea that maybe he does love Baekhyun. _I’ll never break your heart._

 

 

He spends the week leading up to EXO-M’s return to Korea rehearsing how he’s going to tell Baekhyun, but it all falls apart when they actually end up in the dorm together, sitting on the edge of Jongdae’s old bed, an unpacked suitcase on the floor.

“So did you figure it out?” Baekhyun asks, winding down after the original excitement of finally seeing EXO-M again. He looks over at Jongdae unaccusingly, but Jongdae’s breath catches anyway.

Contrary to popular belief, fame doesn’t make people larger—Jongdae’s of the belief that fame has made him much, much smaller. Vast stages and arenas tended to swallow personalities and anything beyond the music. But the way Baekhyun looks at him makes Jongdae feel almost too large. How can you so easily and freely give me so much attention, Jongdae wants to ask, but doesn’t.

“Not really,” Jongdae admits. He looks to the ground, scuffing his slipper on the floor. “I… I still don’t know.”

Jongdae feels a warm hand slip into his own, and he looks back up at Baekhyun, whose eyebrows raise softly as he smiles. 

“That’s okay, Jongdae.” Baekhyun leans his head against Jongdae’s shoulder, and it feels like in this moment, things are just that: okay. Another thing that Jongdae has learned from Baekhyun is to enjoy the small things, because sometimes that’s all you get. 

They sit in silence for their short eternity. When Jongdae finally decides to unpack his bag, Baekhyun kisses him amicably on the top of his head and goes to shower.

 

 

For a short period, promotions are fun. EXO’s been around for enough time that they get more freedom on stage and more freedom in variety—Jongdae sticks by Baekhyun whenever he can, and their closeness doesn’t go unnoticed by the fans. 

It’s nice. Jongdae doesn’t try to deny it. Baekhyun and him are joined at the hips, and no one else makes him laugh harder than Baekhyun. Jongdae keeps taking time without ever giving it back.

The downfall is quick and nearly painless. Idols tended to do that: one day under the golden glow of Korea's national spotlight, the next already beginning to be forgotten.

 

 

When the dating scandal first breaks out, Baekhyun ignores everyone in the dorm for a good two days. Jongdae doesn’t know how real the relationship is, but the backlash sure is real—SM’s thrown both Baekhyun and Taeyeon under the bus for good, choosing to let the fans focus on them rather than the recent lawsuits. Jongdae doesn’t want to think about those either.

He comforts Baekhyun in the small ways he can: buying his favorite snacks, cuddling, putting on the movies they used to watch together. 

Jongdae can’t lie, though, the vicious media response has scared the crap out of him.

When he finally settles back in the dorms, however, after brushing random strands of Chanyeol’s hair off of his bed, it finally hits him how hopeless the whole thing is. 

He hasn’t figured it out: it’s not just about deciding whether or not he likes Baekhyun. Jongdae does. That’s the easy part. The part that doesn’t come so easy, now that he’s sitting less than three feet away from Baekhyun’s bed, who’s the subject of a national witch hunt all because he dares to show up in a car with a girl that he thought was pretty. 

How can Jongdae further ruin what they have?

And not what they have now as in their relationship with each other, but what they have now as in EXO. Growl and Overdose had finally launched their career into the whirlwind frenzy so ubiquitous to K-Pop, and seated with consecutive number ones, every member bears the burden of not letting the rest of the group down. Post-scandal, nothing is ever going to happen.

Jongdae stares up at the ceiling and counts for a minute, holding his breath. Baekhyun’s in hiding, probably watching a movie with Minseok or Chanyeol, so Jongdae takes the time to finally get some peace and quiet to just think.

He won’t ever get to date Baekhyun, that’s for sure. Jongdae doesn’t even really know if he’d want to, if having a relationship meant giving up EXO and promotions and singing for good. Breaking a heart is a minor sacrifice in comparison to everything else he’s given up for the stage.

They can't break up, anyway, they were never a thing to begin with. Anyway, Jongdae will never break Baekhyun's heart because Baekhyun's heart, much like Jongdae's, belongs to the idol industry. Jongdae's pretty sure that at least one line of the thousand-page SM contract had involved giving away rights to not only body but soul as well.

That night, Jongdae decides, and somehow, it works. Sure, popular culture says that the heart does what it wants, but Jongdae finds that squashing down hopeless dreams is so much easier when his biggest—to be an idol—has already been realized. Isn't it ironic that it takes him the better half of three years to identify that he loves Baekhyun and yet in only three short hours he learns to undo it all just for the possibility that it could interfere with singing? 

This time, the word he practices alone isn’t _I love you_.

“Sorry,” he says, and like all things Baekhyun, Jongdae truly means it. “Sorry. I really am.” _We could have been_ is what he doesn't say, because according to one of Baekhyun's superstitions, saying things out loud imbued them with truth. Jongdae can't afford to give Baekhyun any more truth than he already has.

 

 

“So have you figured it out?” Baekhyun asks, voice hardly a whisper. It’s late. They have to get up early tomorrow. In his life, Jongdae has never dreaded the dawn the way he has since becoming an idol. 

“You told me it was okay that I hadn’t,” he says. The second before Baekhyun responds again seems to last an eternity, and instead of comfort, Jongdae feels a little sick. He doesn’t want to have this conversation now, or ever.

“That’s a no?” Baekhyun is terse, tired. They all are—the thick blizzard of scandals have worn them all out, especially Baekhyun, and promotions haven’t helped. Still, Jongdae can instinctively feel the beginning of another late-night conversation, and it feels life-changing, somehow incredible, the way that all of his conversations with Baekhyun do. But this one in particular feels somehow catalytic.

So he shuts it down. “I’m tired,” Jongdae whines, rolling over. “I don’t know anything, isn’t it bad luck to ask a question three times or something?” He looks over because he can’t help himself, and even though he knows, the disappointed expression on Baekhyun’s face still feels like a dismissal. Feeling bad, Jongdae tries to open his mouth to say something to soothe it over, to make Baekhyun understand, because he always has in the past.

But Baekhyun, soft and sweeter than he'll admit, kind and sensitive and sometimes easily hurt, stops him. "It's fine. Take your time."

"No, Baekhyun," Jongdae sighs. "I don't think I'm going to." Two weeks have passed since he first saw Baekhyun's face in the news, and since then it's bothered him less and less each time he sees it. When Baekhyun turns to look at him, Jongdae doesn't feel pinned anymore. He feels freer, somehow, and that makes him hopelessly relieved and impossibly sad. It's like the magic's gone. Jongdae doesn't know whether to feel triumphant or desolate. He also doesn't know if Baekhyun feels the same way.

One look at the other boy's face tells Jongdae far too much. They don't ever speak about it again.

 

 

They don’t talk as much after that—Baekhyun goes out of his way to avoid Jongdae on stage, enough so that fans notice, but they attribute it to the negative comments that have been plaguing Baekhyun since the scandal. They don’t make as many jokes, but when Jongdae goes to China for his last round of promotions there, right before Luhan leaves, Baekhyun calls him only once. It’s enough. Their friendship picks up again, but it’s not the same.

At EXO’s peak popularity, Jongdae is soaring. He has the crowd and his microphone and the love and support of a million fans. He dates a girl for a little while, falls in and out of love with her, but never wavers in his desire to sing. The fatigue is expected, the schedules terrible, but he could be the happiest man on earth, right now.

No one else makes Jongdae sad the way Baekhyun does. 

At the end of the day, Jongdae has always known he can’t have both Baekhyun and the stage, because that would be too easy and nothing worth having comes easy. After all, that’s what his dance choreographer says; what his vocal coach says; what his personal trainer says; what his boss says; what Baekhyun says. Baekhyun is his best work friend from sheer exposure, and that’s all he’ll ever be, because that’s all Jongdae will let him be. Between the fame and Baekhyun, ten out of ten times, Jongdae will always choose to let Baekhyun go.

And he might talk a lot about the future for someone paid to live in the present, but it’s all just talk. Ten out of ten times, Baekhyun would choose the stage too. Or, at least, that’s what Jongdae hopes.

They sit together on the floor of the training room, panting from over-exhaustion, sweaty from running the choreo too many times. Jongdae feels the burn of adrenaline in his veins and attributes it to how much exercise he’s done. It’s the first time they’ve been alone with each other in some while.

“Jongdae—” Baekhyun starts, and then he stops, changing the direction of his words. “God. I’m fucking exhausted.”

Jongdae gets to his feet and wipes the sweat off his brow. "Let’s run the combo again,” he says, offering a hand. "I’m dead right now, but if I don’t get the footwork I’m even more dead.”

Both of them are silent for a heartbeat. It’s a dark blue silence, melancholy and quietly nostalgic. Jongdae thinks it's the dangerous sound of what could have been, so he coughs loudly and sticks his arm out again. "Come on, you lazy ass. We need to practice."

There’s a mild look in Baekhyun’s eyes when he finally looks up at Jongdae. Mild hurt, mild adoration, mild fatigue. Baekhyun hesitates for a second, and then smiles weakly. "The price of becoming an idol,” he jokes, and Jongdae laughs so easily, like he always does, even though he knows that Baekhyun’s not really joking. 

“We chose this life,” Jongdae responds, hand still outstretched. “Hurry up, we don’t have all day.”

The price of becoming an idol takes Jongdae’s hand and pulls himself up. They keep practicing.

**Author's Note:**

> three thousand thank you's to the kindest, most patient mods in the world. i love you all and wish you the absolute best. quick mention to c for dealing with my breakdown, i-can't-write-this moments, and j/l for being sweethearts in general. canon!fic doesn't come easy to me, so i'm sorry if this piece was disjointed and/or rushed, but i'm honestly relieved to have written it ;;;
> 
> This fic was written for K-Pop Olymfics 2019 as part of Team Canon/AR/Future 1. Olymfics is a challenge in which participants write fics based on prompt sets and compete against other teams of writers, organized by genre. Competition winners are chosen by the readers, so please rate this fic using [this survey](https://forms.gle/6saH6v8d3cChYYzWA)!


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